In recent years, upon the start of digital broadcast, prevalence of the Internet, marriage of televisions and computers, and the like, television viewers often display an EPG on a television screen or the like, watch programs, set timer recording of programs, and so forth.
Note that the electronic program guide (EPG) displays program contents of some channels in a given time band using data (EPG data) associated with programs such as titles of broadcast programs, sub-titles, genres, casts, comments, and the like on a matrix like a television section of newspapers and the like, as shown in FIG. 20. FIG. 20 shows an example of a conventional EPG which is displayed on the television screen and includes brief programs. In order to make the EPG shown in FIG. 20 more convenient for viewers, it is desirable to display data of all channels for a longer time band at one time.
On the other hand, the number of channels and the time band that can be displayed at one time are limited due to the resolution of the television screen, text legibility, and the like at the present moment. Therefore, in order to display program information as much as possible within such limitations, a sufficient display space cannot be assured for a brief program for about several minutes. For this reason, the conventional EPG adopts a display method of displaying only color bars (indicated by hatching in FIG. 20 for the sake of simplicity) displayed in specific color so as to make viewers recognize the presence of such brief programs.
In order to confirm the contents of a program that a viewer might want to watch, he or she focuses on the “color bar” that indicates a given brief program using cursor keys, thus displaying the program contents of that portion as a popup or displaying the program contents on a detailed information area on the lower portion of the screen. In addition, a method that allows the viewer to easily recognize programs by color-coding the programs in correspondence with genres upon displaying an EPG is known (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-196343).
However, it is very troublesome to focus on each brief program in the displayed EPG to display its contents as a popup so as to confirm the contents, and the original feature of the EPG that allows a viewer to simultaneously confirm the contents of various programs is not sufficiently utilized. The same applies to the method of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-196343.
In another method, a space for at least one line may be assured to display the contents of each brief program. However, with this method, the display space for other programs is reduced. Furthermore, only program titles can be displayed even for programs, whose contents are displayed, other than brief programs, and the viewer must confirm the detailed contents on the detailed information display area or the like by shifting a focus to a program that he or she wants to watch using the cursor keys or the like as in the brief programs.
As described above, in the conventional EPG display, the viewer must make a focus operation by moving a cursor or the like to confirm a program title and detailed contents, and cannot simultaneously confirm detailed contents of a plurality of programs. Hence, the original feature of the EPG cannot be sufficiently utilized.